When you’re feeling down or need to cheer someone up, there’s nothing that beats a simple cup of tea. But making someone a cuppa isn’t just a kind and thoughtful gesture – it can also have a range of health benefits too.
This classic hot beverage is drank by countless people all over the world every day. But it turns out that not a lot of people truly know how beneficial it can be to our mental and physical health.
A new survey carried out by the Tea Advisory Panel has discovered that more than four in five Brits aren’t aware of how tea drinking can impact our wellbeing – and there are some pretty impressive studies to back it up.
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There are so many different types of tea out there, but they’re all derived from the leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant, which are rich in polyphenols – plant-based compounds that help our bodies to fight cell damage.
And even better, tea is ultra-cheap too, with a pack of 240 bags from Asda costing £3.20 – working out at 13p each. Here are a few health benefits of tea that you may not have been aware of.
Mental health
A good cup of tea is the go-to when you need to have a difficult conversation or lend a listening ear to someone – and it turns out there’s scientific evidence to support this.
Dietician Dr Carrie Ruxton from the Tea Advisory Panel said: “A recent review of the latest scientific evidence suggests that certain active ingredients in tea could help reduce the effects of depression, anxiety, and sleep problems. These substances include L-theanine, γ-aminobutyric acid (GABA), arginine, catechins, theaflavins, caffeine, theacrine, and a number of volatile compounds.”
According to Healthline, black tea can also help to improve your focus thanks to the caffeine content, so it’s good if you want to be more alert too.
(Image: Getty Images/iStockphoto)
Brain health
“When it comes to keeping our brain healthy, a study of more than 4,000 people found that regular tea drinking was significantly associated with a lower chance of having cognitive impairment in middle age and older age,” explained tea expert and researcher Dr Tim Bond from the Tea Advisory Panel.
Cognitive impairment is an umbrella term for problems with memory, understanding, reasoning, and problem-solving. Frequent tea drinking and drinking green tea in particular were noted to be especially beneficial in this study.
Bone health
Research also shows that tea is supportive of our skeletal system. Dr Tim explained: “A super study of 18 individual studies involving more than 48,000 postmenopausal women found that drinking tea resulted in higher bone mineral density around the hips. Drinking tea also lowered their risk of osteoporosis and bone fractures.”